The Wesleys Prepare Us for Jacob's Story

This week, I happily came into possession of a collected volume of the Wesleys' hymns. (Most of them are written by Charles, but John appears to have always brandished the editor’s pen.) Neither hymn is presented with all lyrics, as only partial copies exist on the internet and I’m not in a mood to transcribe fourteen verse hymns!

The first is a hymn to be sung before the study of scripture:

Come, Holy Ghost, our hearts inspire,

Let us thine influence prove;

Source of the old prophetic fire,

Fountain of life and love.

Come, Holy Ghost (for moved by thee

The prophets wrote and spoke),

Unlock the truth, thyself the key,

Unseal the sacred book.

Expand thy wings, celestial Dove,

Brood o'er our nature's night;

On our disordered spirits move,

And let there now be light.

God, through the Spirit we shall know

If thou within us shine,

And sound, with all thy saints below,

The depths of love divine.

Gustave Doré's Jacob Wrestles with the Angel, 1855

The second is a hymn built on the theophany experienced by Jacob at Peniel In Genesis 32:

Come, O thou Traveler unknown,

whom still I hold, but cannot see!

My company before is gone,

and I am left alone with thee.

With thee all night I mean to stay

and wrestle till the break of day.

Wilt thou not yet to me reveal

thy new, unutterable name?

Tell me, I still beseech thee, tell,

to know it now resolved I am.

Wrestling, I will not let thee go

till I thy name, thy nature know.

My strength is gone, my nature dies,

I sink beneath thy weighty hand,

faint to revive, and fall to rise.

I fall, and yet by faith I stand;

I stand and will not let thee go

till I thy name, thy nature know.

Yield to me now—for I am weak,

but confident in self-despair!

Speak to my heart, in blessing speak,

be conquered by my instant prayer.

Speak, or thou never hence shalt move,

and tell me if thy name is Love.

‘Tis Love! ‘tis Love that wrestled me!

I hear thy whisper in my heart.

The morning breaks, the shadows flee,

pure, universal Love thou art.

To me, to all, thy mercies move—

thy nature and thy name is Love.

While our encounter with God in scripture might be more mundane and less dramatic (or traumatic?) than Jacob's encounter with the man who wrestled him all night, the study of scripture can indeed be a wrestling match and we should come to it hoping to encounter God, and committed to holding on for dear life.